Instagram vamps up photo editing tools

NEW YORK (AP) — The photo sharing app Instagram is adding editing tools that go beyond the vintage-looking filters that made it popular.

The Facebook-owned app said in a blog post Tuesday that users will be able to adjust the brightness, contrast, saturation and other features of photos they take with their smartphones.

The tools are available after downloading the newest version of Instagram, 6.0, on Android or Apple phones. The photo editing tools will appear under a wrench icon.

Instagram’s filters can enhance photos or add a certain hue to them, to make them look like they were taken with a Polaroid camera in the 1970s. But as smartphone cameras have improved, many users have become more sophisticated about their snapshots. Some have turned to other apps with more powerful editing tools to fix photos before posting them on Instagram.

Instagram has more than 200 million users. It was founded in 2010 and acquired by Facebook in 2012.

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